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Starband Files for Chapter 11 protection
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This does not surprise me.Originally posted by Rking401
http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=marketsquote99_news.ht&s=APPgKkhajU3RhckJh
Our company received two of the original SkyBlaster Starband systems ( the ones with the pre-loaded Starband computer included ) the first spring they began testing. I can say that they were both the most worthless pieces of electronic junk that I have ever used.
They were almost as bad as a Dishplayer, but at least Dishplayers work once and a while.
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It doesn't surprise me either, but not because of a product that doesn't work but simply because they are priced out of the market to reach enough saturation for profitability. Your experience is similar to what I had, and expected, as an original beta tester using the same box (I assume you had the Dell box). That's part of being a beta tester I guess. I find the current product, the 360 modem, which I have been using for about a year, works just fine better than 99% of the time. Many dealers had problems with the product, but, having serviced several in this area installed by others, I found that most of those problems related back to poor installation. Their customer service left a lot to be desired initially, but improved once Dish took over that area. Now, if they could just change the laws of physics and cure latency and rain fade. According to my real time quote system I was down for about 20 minutes today during a severe thunderstorm. This was just about the longest outage that I have ever had with the system. It's a shame to see this happen to them and I hope that they can pull themselves out of Chapter 11 eventually and remain a viable product (although I have my doubts that they can sell enough to become profitable). By the way, I have removed the T/R cards from the Dell, added a larger drive, and dedicated the box to an MP3 server for music playback. (posted using Starband)
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i was on the beta program also-what helped somewhat was increasing the memory to 128, but it was still garbage service, and i couldn't figure out a way to tell a customer that for $700 and $80 a month that his service would regularly slow down to 14.4 speeds during peak times!!!!the only good thing i can say about being on starband for a year and a half is that it was free(for many of the beta testors, that is...)once i HAD to go back to paying for internet service, i opted for dsl and for the most part have been happy with it the past three weeks...
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Which is exactly what I tell my customers to do if DSL becomes available to them. For the targeted audience, those without access to DSL or other high speed services, Starband is a relief. My average download speed at DSL reports with 17 tests recorded is 467.17, not bad for an area with no other high speed access. High download = 654, low = 257. Average upload speed = 37.7 on all 17 tests. Average upload on the most recent 5 tests = 51.2, average upload speed on the oldest 5 tests = 21.4, so I am seeing a significant improvement there (they are now meeting spec.). Download speeds have not really been trending up or down since the first test.
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It's a good thing Insight cable modem is available where we are cuz I was considering Starband. But then again, after seeing the price tag to buy the needed equipment, I almost fainted.
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I want to get what you have. Fill me in. Being able to respond to posts before receiving them is great. Wow could I save a bunch of time everyday.
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